The lethal injection drug used in Christa Pike’s botched execution was just used in Texas. A look at the two cases

By Karina Tsui, CNN

(CNN) — Two scheduled executions a week apart have highlighted the ongoing debate over the practice of lethal injection in the US, with both using the same drug but yielding dramatically different outcomes.

Texas on Wednesday executed 46-year-old Jamaal Howard, a man who fatally shot a convenience store clerk more than two decades ago.

Howard was pronounced dead at 8:03 p.m., the Associated Press reported, after receiving a lethal dose of pentobarbital, a barbiturate that can cause death, at a state prison in Huntsville.

He was the 30th person to be executed in the US this year, but the first since the botched execution attempt of Christa Pike in Tennessee, where officials administered the same drug – but she survived.

As Pike remains hospitalized and a legal battle plays out over her future, Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee has ordered a third-party investigation into what went wrong and halted executions in the state for the rest of the year. Pike was the second failed execution attempt the state has seen this year.

Same lethal drug, different outcomes

After the pentobarbital was administered Wednesday night, Howard took a couple of breaths and gasped, the AP reported, before making snoring sounds that grew quiet within 30 seconds. He was pronounced dead 19 minutes later.

After Pike was injected with the drug on September 30, she also began snoring and moaning, according to media witnesses. But she kept breathing.

An unconscious Pike was later taken to a Nashville hospital and placed on a ventilator. Her attorneys announced Tuesday she was awake and speaking in what they called a “medically unprecedented” recovery.

According to documents compiled by the Death Penalty Information Center, both Tennessee and Texas have execution protocols that require syringes to be prepared with a 100 ml solution that contains 5 grams of pentobarbital.

Pike was administered two doses of the solution, witnesses said.

It’s unknown exactly how many doses Howard received. CNN has reached out to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for more information on his execution.

Pike, who was sentenced to death for the 1995 murder of 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer, was to become the first woman executed in Tennessee in 200 years.

Pike’s attorneys said her executioners struggled to place IV lines to administer the lethal injection, and they previously warned the state of difficulties finding her vein access. Randy Spivey, one of Pike’s lawyers, said she talked with the execution team about where they should try to insert the IV lines.

An emergency motion ordering the state to preserve evidence said those administering the lethal injection attempted to gain IV access to Pike using “at least seven needles,” with one needle “bent in a 90-degree angle when it was removed.” A judge granted the motion Wednesday.

When she arrived at the hospital, Pike’s arms were “swollen, burned and blistered,” her attorneys said. Pentobarbital “burns upon contact, including skin, tissue, and veins,” they said. The attorneys believe issues with the IV meant the drug flowed into her body instead of her bloodstream.

The Tennessee Department of Correction said it followed its lethal execution protocol, which approves a one-drug method of pentobarbital and allows a backup injection if the inmate is still alive.

There is no protocol for what happens if the second injection does not work.

Pike is “angry and confused about everything right now,” but is “very aware that the state tried to execute her,” Spivey told reporters on the sidelines of Wednesday’s hearing on the botched execution, adding that Pike has a “long road to recovery.”

Pike has pneumonia and a blood clot in one of her arms, and is not able to swallow and therefore not eating, Spivey said Wednesday.

Court hearings and political debates

Before Howard’s planned execution, his attorneys filed motions Wednesday before the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals to block it, arguing he was intellectually disabled and faced risks similar to Pike’s case because the same drug was being used with questions raised over its quality.

The court denied his motions without comment.

Hours earlier, Pike’s attorneys were also in court as a judge ruled the state of Tennessee must preserve all evidence related to her failed execution, including 911 calls, communications between state officials, and physical evidence.

The state said it collected things like logbooks, medical waste, and electrocardiogram readouts from the execution chamber. But other evidence, such as cut IV lines transported to the hospital with Pike, may not be in the Tennessee Department of Correction’s custody.

The state’s Correction Commissioner Frank Strada is stepping down later this month amid the backlash, which has brought scrutiny to the state’s method of lethal injection and propelled the death penalty to become a main point of debate in Tennessee’s gubernatorial race.

US Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who is the Republican nominee for governor, called to bring back the electric chair and “deliver justice for these victims swiftly.”

Meanwhile, Blackburn’s Democratic opponent Jerri Green vowed to “enact a moratorium on all future executions” in the state.

“What happened on that gurney wasn’t just an administrative failure; it was torture, plain and simple,” Green said in a statement.

“The facts are clear: the death penalty has proven to be an ineffective deterrent to violent crime, it is vastly more expensive than life imprisonment, and it is riddled with bias,” her statement continues.

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